


... your eyes close as I fall asleep

by NairobiWonders



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of Blood, Mentions of Death, Nightmares, Platonic Cuddling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 11:41:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13786905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NairobiWonders/pseuds/NairobiWonders
Summary: Hurt/comfort, friendship, nightmares.Takes place weeks/months after Sherlock's medical crisis.See end for notes.





	... your eyes close as I fall asleep

"What happened to the teapot?"

"It broke ... it fell.. I, uh, dropped it ..."

***

Five hours earlier, approx. 2:00 a.m. 

"SHERLOCK!!!" 

The terror in her voice vibrated through him, rattling his bones and squeezing the breath from his lungs. Two, three at a time, he took the steps up from the kitchen towards her room. Behind him the crash of porcelain to floor barely registered. 

"No, no, no! Sherlock!!! Noooo...." Her wailing wrung the blood from his heart. 

He reached the second floor and barreled into her room to find her in bed faced away from him ... possibly asleep, fetal position, breathing short and shallow. Striving to regain control, Sherlock stopped before softly calling out her name, "Watson?" No response. He rounded the bed and knelt before her. She was asleep but muscles twitched, hands clenched at the sheets ... she murmured something unintelligible. Tears ran from closed eyes. 

Unsure what to do, he whispered her name once more and watched her. After a time, her breaths came slow and steady, her hands unclenched, her body relaxed. He carefully brought the comforter up over her shoulder and dared a small stroke of her covered arm, more for his sake than for hers. 

Sherlock sat cross-legged on the floor beside her bed for a good hour or so, until he felt sure that whatever terror tormented her sleep had galloped away into the darkness. He moved to the chair and kept vigil until the weak light of predawn peeked through the shutters. 

***

"That's a shame. That old teapot saw us through some rough times."

"Yes, well, ... it couldn't be helped." Sherlock studied her demeanor for remnants of the night's turmoil before reaching for a banality to cover the silence, "You're up early..." 

"Mmm..." she nodded in agreement, staring at him wide-eyed with the need to say more but the inability to do so. A hazy memory overwhelmed her, an image, a thought ... the sense of something that grieved and keened in the darkness. Joan moved towards the coffee pot to hide it all from him.

"Watson?" He was suddenly beside her. "Tell me." She turned a slow gaze towards him, a gaze full of fear and uncertainty. 

"I uhm..." Joan hid behind the just poured cup and took her coffee to the table. "I've not been sleeping well." He followed. 

"Nor have I," he mumbled and sat beside her, waiting for her to continue. 

"I've been having ... nightmares ... really horrible." She struggled with how much to tell him. "I've had nightmares before ... after Andrew and Shinwell and my ... my patient .... but these," she drew a shaky breath, "these are ..." His eyes, large, full of concern brought her back to the moment. Joan shook her head with a tiny smile. "I'm being silly. It's not that bad. I can handle it."

"Watson." His tone was soft but it forced her to look at him. "Tell me.... please."

Against all her attempts to stop it, a tear slipped as she stared at him. "It's you." Her words barely made a sound. Joan looked away, unable to bear the intensity of his eyes as they searched her face. "You...." She nodded and swallowed and scrutinized the worn surface of the kitchen table. "Hurt...." Joan relived the dream as she spoke. "Laying in a pool of blood .... deep, deep red .... your blood, your life seeping away and I can't get to you." The words rushed out as the fear intensified. "I can't help you... I reach, I stretch but you're always out of reach and you're dying I can't touch you and I watch you bleed and die ... over and over again, you die and I can't save you..... I can't save you." She covered her face and silently cried.

Her pain reverberated through him much as her screams had last night. Sherlock could no longer watch her suffer. He extended an arm out towards her and gingerly encircled her shoulders, bringing her to him and she allowed herself to be comforted. Her quiet tears continued; he felt their initial warmth and their cool trickle as they made their way down his skin. 

"Don't cry ... don't cry," he murmured. "It's just a dream. Just a dream ... I'm here and fine and getting stronger, hmm?" He caressed the back of her head and whispered in her ear. "You save me every day ... every day since you walked into this house. You need just stand beside me and you save me ... "

She dug her head further into the warmth of his neck until the tears subsided and she caught her breath.

"I'm sorry," she wiped at her face as she pulled away from him. "I shouldn't have ..." and the sentence ended there. Joan watched as he wiped at his own face. "I'm sorry," she repeated. She stood and drew the cardigan a little closer round her. "I'm going to go get dressed. We have work to do, right?" Her attempt to move on, to obliterate the moment of weakness, failed. 

"No, you are not, and no, we do not." He stood and purposefully towered over her. "We are calling in sick and we are going to get some sleep."

"Right ..." She smiled at him, knowing he must be joking. Work always came first. "Do you want to use the bathroom before I shower?" Joan stifled a yawn.

"I'm quite serious, Watson." He proved his determination by bravely taking her elbow and leading her to his bedroom. His bed lay open, clean-sheeted and ready for her.

A small panic broke in the pit of her stomach. "Sherlock, I can't ..."

"Yes, you can." He led her to the bed, pulled back the covers, and motioned to her.

"I'm not sleepy ..." 

He looked at her with mocking disbelief, "You are exhausted. You may be able to lie but your body at the moment cannot."

She spoke to the bed rather than him, "What if it happens again?"

"I'll stay with you. I'll be right here." 

Joan gave in to exhaustion and the palpable safety he was offering her and moved on to the bed, offering one last argument. "I don't think this is going to work. I can't sleep on command."

"I have the utmost faith in your ability to sleep Watson." Sherlock closed the doors to the room to minimize the light streaming in from the kitchen. Returning to her side, he adjusted the bedcovers and stood over her as she settled in. 

An awkwardness set over him. "I, uhm," he hesitated before continuing. "Would you permit me to lay beside you?" He added quickly, "Over the covers, of course. With no intent of taking any sort of liberties whatsoever." A small nervous nod punctuated the end of his statement.

She contained a smile at his sudden onset of other century manners and pulled back the sheet and covers for him.

 

Four hours later her eyes fluttered. She and Sherlock lay hopelessly tangled - arms, legs, hair, heads, ungracefully entwined. He snored into her hair; her hand lay on top of his head, fingers threaded through the short crop of his. No nightmares, just blissful sleep. Joan slipped off from on top of him and nestled in the curve of his body. He adjusted without waking, laying on his side, wrapping arms and spooning her to him. They slept on.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Pablo Neruda's Sonnet XVII which seems to me to explain the essence of Holmes/Watson love, platonic or otherwise -
> 
> I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,  
> or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.  
> I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,  
> in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
> 
> I love you as the plant that never blooms  
> but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;  
> thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,  
> risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
> 
> I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.  
> I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;  
> so I love you because I know no other way
> 
> than this: where I does not exist, nor you,  
> so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,  
> so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.


End file.
